


As Long As the Moons Shine

by TimeSorceror



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood, Caleb Typical Angst, Discussions of Resurrection, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Maybe - Freeform, Not A Fix-It, Prayer, Pre-Relationship, Sort Of, Spoilers for S02E26
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-20
Updated: 2018-07-20
Packaged: 2019-06-13 06:06:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15357906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TimeSorceror/pseuds/TimeSorceror
Summary: In the aftermath of the disastrous encounter on Glory Run Road, the remaining Nein attempt to pick up the pieces of what is left and figure out how to move on from there.





	As Long As the Moons Shine

**Author's Note:**

> This is not quite the fix-it fic you are probably hoping for. This is me trying to work out my feelings after the Talks Machina that followed Episode 26. It has a hopeful ending, but it deals with just a lot of sadness and feels, and if that's not what you need, maybe don't read this.
> 
> I am proud of what's written here, however, despite whatever is going to happen when episode 27 airs live in about 2 hours. These are my very fragile hopes and dreams for the fate of Mollymauk Tealeaf, my dear, sweet purple tiefling. Long may you reign.

For Caleb, the world had gone silent.

Snow fell, absorbing all sound. Idly, Caleb wondered if the other night had been Mollymauk’s first time seeing snow. His face had seemed so beautiful in his contentedness as they took watch together, a thousand questions on Caleb’s tongue but none seemed willing enough to break free from his lips. Something inside him burned with shame as the reality of his callousness shook him. He hadn’t ever cared enough to ask how far north the carnival had traveled, had he? Still, that dark and monstrous part of him insisted it was better that way.

Hadn’t Mollymauk said not to get attached?

His chest ached as he watched an injured Beauregard yelling at Keg. His ears heard the sound, certainly, but all Caleb knew was the silence and Mollymauk. Mollymauk, and Mollymauk’s blood as it pooled, congealing in the snow, and the grass, and the dirt.

Something moved him to stumble forward, once, twice. He couldn’t register the sound that his boots made, crunching the snow and the grass beneath him, even though physically his skin shivered at the unwanted stimulus. On impulse, Caleb reached out a hand as a word clawed its way out of his throat, heavy with the weight of memories and sticky with sickly sweet tears that gathered in his eyes, unshed.

“Stop,” he rasped.

The two women turned to look at him, and Caleb absorbed two things at once.

The first was Keg’s face, the shock written cleanly into the tight planes of her cheeks, which were dirtier than they had appeared at first glance since he could see the tracks of her tears running into her stubble. The second was Beauregard, who only took a moment to catch his gaze before she shuddered and let out a short bark of a sob before jerking into a wobbly run towards Mollymauk’s body. She pitched forward into a kneel as she gathered the bloody coat into her hands and screamed as though doing so would empty her of all emotion.

“You _FUCKING ASSHOLE_!” She spat, her own bloody spittle spraying onto the coat where she had it pressed against her chest. “Why did you have to go and do that? Shit, I’m not worth dying for! Wh– Why? _Why_?”

Why indeed, Caleb thought.

He glanced over at Keg. Unable to form words, he shot her a look that he hoped conveyed all that he wanted her to know.

_You do not have to stay._

_This was not your fault._

She seemed to understand, but instead of sheathing her weapon and walking off into the darkness, she laid it down in the middle of the road and knelt next to Beauregard, close but not close enough to touch, her body stiff and tight with what Caleb supposed was fear, which was fair. Beauregard had looked about ready to murder Keg before he had called out to them.

The silence was still deafening as he stood there, watching them grieve. Keg hadn’t even known Mollymauk for perhaps a little more than a day, but Caleb could not help but envy her courage to feel so fiercely for him.

A tiny hand tugged on his coat sleeve. He glanced down to look.

There stood Nott, mask off, hood down, bandages askew, her great, large eyes swimming with tears. She was speaking to him, but he could not filter the words from his ears into his head. Later, he would remember she was asking him if they should leave, and the feeling of hot anger spreading through him when he finally thought about that would surprise him in its intensity, but at that moment all he could do was shake his head and pat hers gently, running his bandaged fingers through her hair.

Gods, but that was a good feeling. Too good. It grounded him in a way he hadn’t been aware that he’d needed to be, and suddenly the sound of the world came rushing back, making him trip backward over a broken piece of wood that had splintered off one of the carts that had escaped them.

“Caleb?” Nott’s voice was quiet and plaintive. “Are you alright?”

 _Nein_ , he wanted to tell her. _Nein_ , he was not alright.

How could he be, when the one person who had been trying to show him that his magic could truly instill beauty and inspiration in the hearts of others was… was gone?

Carefully avoiding the pieces of debris in the road, Caleb gingerly picked his way forward and slowly lowered himself next to Beauregard.

He sighed. He was not good at this.

Even when he’d had his mind intact and his parents had still been alive, he had not been good at this. _Mutter_ had told him he took after his _Vater_ like that, and that he should try to approach these situations just as he had. He frowned, reaching for those memories, even as painful as they were to touch.

“Beauregard?” He asked after a few beats, unable to tear his eyes from her for fear of lingering on Mollymauk’s still open, unblinking, unseeing gaze.

She didn’t appear to have heard him. Her entire frame trembled, but it was her shoulders that shook most of all, Caleb noted. Likely trying to hold back some of the sobs she kept choking down as she cursed into Mollymauk’s blood-soaked coat.

“You–you asshat,” she stuttered, stumbling over her words as best she could with a mouth that had to feel both too dry and too full of tears all at once, “don’t–don’t you think you can just go an’ _do_ that!” Caleb watched, hand held still over her back, fingers trembling as she crumpled in on herself and the volume of her sobs increased anew. Caleb glanced over Beauregard to focus on Keg. She was looking at him too, expression pained and helpless.

 _I’m just some idiot who got him killed_ , Caleb guessed she was thinking.

He shook his head.

_You aren’t. This was not your fault._

She narrowed her eyes a bit, her brows furrowing as she glanced down at Beauregard, then back at him. He couldn’t quite meet her eyes, but he knew how to read that suggestion.

Caleb sighed again, fumbling in his coat for the symbol he had plucked from the pile of contraband back in the safe house in Labenda Swamp. Beauregard’s grief continued to echo his own until he could no longer keep his own tears from falling.

He prayed as hard as he could ever remember praying before that he did not fuck this up.

Because he was good at that. Maybe some divine intervention was just what he needed.

“You can’t just go dying on me, dammit,” Beauregard whispered, sniffing wetly. “You can’t just save me and then die so you can brag to– to– I don’t know, the fucking _Raven Queen_ or some shit that you’ve got one up on me for the rest of fucking eternity or some sh–sh… gods.”

Caleb pressed his bandage covered hand against Beauregard’s back.

He kept it light, gingerly holding it there, waiting for Beauregard to snap or yell or snarl or–

“C–Caleb? M–May I… may I… gods. I can’t...”

Caleb tilted his head to get a better look at Beauregard’s face, hoping to read something there that he wasn’t able to parse from her voice alone. In that same moment, she turned to look at him, and he caught sight of her expression.

Gods. She looked so _young_. Young and afraid and overwhelmed with grief.

Caleb gave into a memory of his father comforting him once when the family cat had passed and pulled her to him. He cleared his throat quietly as the volume of her sobs increased and her hands clutched at his coat, her face buried in the wool lining of the collar. “Hush,” he soothed, echoing his father’s words. Then, in a softer voice, “I do not know what I am doing. Just… go with it.” He settles his arms around her so that he is more comfortable than he was, and she doesn’t reply as much as she just nods and sobs harder.

Caleb presses a cheek against her hair and lets his own tears soak into the strands. He feels someone –Nott, he guesses, from the shape of her– huddle close to his side as she presses her face into his scarf. Her body trembles against his nearly as much as Beauregard’s, and he knows she’s crying too.

He couldn’t guess at what her relationship to Mollymauk had been, other than that she hadn’t trusted him, but evidently she cared enough to cry at the loss of him.

Caleb managed to spare a glance at Keg, who was still sitting close to Beauregard, but not quite touching her. He jerked his head in their direction as gently as he was able.

“Come here, Keg,” Caleb croaks. “ _Bitte_. None of us should be alone.”

She paused, turning to him, her face completely consumed with guilt and hesitation. However, after a heartbeat’s deliberation, Keg finally bridged the gap between herself and Beauregard, gingerly pressing her side against the monk’s. Then Beauregard does something that surprises Caleb and Keg both and she wrenches one of her arms free from Caleb’s hold to blindly reach for one of Keg’s hands, clutching it _tight_ when she finds it.

Keg does not wince, but she closes her eyes and puts her face to Beauregard’s shoulder.

Even Frumpkin joined them, fluttering into the space formed between Caleb and Beauregard’s legs, hooting mournfully and headbutting them in a decidedly very unowl-like manner.

The five of them remain that way for some time, huddled close and crying. Caleb is the first to open his eyes again to reach out, slowly, so as not to dislodge anyone from their much-needed comfort, and gently close the lids of Mollymauk’s eyes.

As he does so, he spots the pin affixed to the inside lapel of his coat.

In a deftly quick manner that Nott would have been proud of if she’d been paying attention, he undid the fastenings and held it close so that he could study what it was that had caught his attention.

It was a little blue harp with two arrows across the top and bottom that were facing opposite directions. He closed his hand over the pin as he sighed, pressing his face to Beauregard’s hair. Why could the gods help him to not fuck up comforting a… a friend, and yet... they could also allow another to die?

“I…” Caleb tried to begin, his voice hoarse and still thick with tears. He paused, at a loss of what to say before some words finally came to him upon remembering where they were. “I know you would probably like to remain for a while longer, but I think we should move Mollymauk before another person comes down this way.”

Caleb distantly felt Keg hum in agreement through Beauregard’s body.

“He’s right,” she mumbled, her words slurring in her weariness. “This is the road to both the capital as well as the Run. We’re sitting ducks if we stay.”

Beauregard sniffed loudly as she pulled away from Caleb’s coat, untangling her arms from his embrace. She coughed, clearing her throat a bit, seemingly still unwilling to completely move away from Caleb as she breathed deeply for a few moments. Gingerly he grabbed the hand of hers that wasn’t still clutching Keg’s.

“Beauregard?”

She looked up, and for that instance, Caleb’s skin didn’t crawl when he met her eyes. He’d never really noticed before now that they were a cool, grey sky blue.

“We should… clean him up a bit, too,” she muttered, distant. Caleb nodded. “We will. Let us get up and move him somewhere safer than the road.”

Nott uncurled herself from Caleb so that he could stand. He grunted as his knees creaked and something in his back popped. Beauregard snickered a bit, managing a weak half-smile.

“Old man,” she teased. Caleb didn’t have the heart to refute it, and her comment even drew a slight quirk to his own lips. The lightness of the moment faded, however, once they were all up and staring down at Mollymauk. “Gods,” Beauregard swore softly, “how are we gonna move him? Bodies are heavy as shit.”

“You could use that tapestry of his,” Keg suggested. “Someone would have to get the horses–”

“I’m on it!” Nott screeched and all but bolted to go find where they’d left them. Caleb sighed deeply this time as he watched her leave, and he reached up to run a hand through his hair. A gentle pressure at his back had him jumping, and behind him, Beauregard swore again.

“Sorry, shit. Should’ve asked. I’m just… really fucked up right now, and that hug was… gods. I know you’re not the person for that but could I, um. Have another?”

Caleb didn’t have it in him to refuse, not with his coat and shirt still wet from her tears. This time he didn’t quite hug her back, but he put a hand to her back as they stood there, waiting for Nott to return. It was a while before she did, and Caleb almost doubted her attachment to him when he thought that maybe she might’ve just up and left, but eventually she came back with their remaining horses, and Mollymauk’s tapestry.

Beauregard wrinkled her nose as they laid it out on the snow dusted grass next to Mollymauk.

“Ugh. I don't want to think about where this has been. I really don’t.”

“Where has it been, exactly?” Keg asked. Beauregard groaned. “I’m pretty sure he had sex on it. With more than one person. More than once. I’m certain that he came to our room in the fancy tavern we were staying at wearing _just_ the tapestry. It was awful.”

Caleb tilted his head as he watched Beauregard and Keg carefully pick up Mollymauk’s body and moved it onto the large swath of fabric. He tilted his head and wondered if Mollymauk had ever had it cleaned? Could he spot the spots of cum if he tweaked the dancing lights spell to–

Gods. What _was_ he doing? Fantasizing about a dead man.

 _A dead man you were sweet on_ , a soft voice whispered in his head. He sighed, shaking his himself free of his thoughts. “Was this the night you and I had… that discussion?”

Beauregard nodded absently as she and Keg picked up the edges of the tapestry and carefully lifted it towards the cliffs that they had been hiding behind only mere minutes ago.

How had it all gone wrong in such a short span of time?

Tears pricked his eyes again, making them sting, and he tried not to sniff too loudly.

“Yeah, but you and Nott stayed in your room afterwards. I think you might’ve enjoyed the show. You… I don’t know. You seem the type who could play both sides of the fence.” Caleb shook himself and snorted. “I do not know what gave you that idea, Beauregard. I would prefer to not play _either_ side of any fence right now.”

As they set Mollymauk down with as much care as they’d picked him up, Beauregard huffed a sad, quiet chuckle through her nose.

“I get that, but I kind of meant, you know. Before.”

Caleb hummed noncommittally as he started gathering kindling for a small fire. She was right, he supposed. He’d found both Astrid and Eodwulf attractive, though now he was uncertain of whether he could find it in himself to desire women that way anymore.

He wasn’t certain he could desire anyone that way anymore.

Wasn’t sure he deserved it.

Until Mollymauk.

Caleb paused, kneeling down to arrange the kindling for a small fire, taking a few deep breaths as the silence settled around him again with Nott, Keg, and Beauregard talking softly in the distance, somehow not thinking to bother him. He held his hand over the wood, the tips of his fingers, tiny embers crackling as his bandages blackened with soot while he cast _Burning Hands_ and coaxed a tender flame to life not far from where Molly lay on the tapestry.

“Caleb?”

“Hmm?” He looked up, the silence slipping away again.

Nott hovered at his side, that same look in her eyes from before. He shook his head again. “I am sorry, Nott. I was… focused. Did you want to ask me something?”

She bit her lip, wringing the fabric of her own scarf in her clawed hands.

“Should I go, uh, see about covering up the blood so no one notices?” Caleb frowned. “Perhaps get Keg or Beauregard to help you. There was…” The words caught in his throat. Nott nodded, running a hand through her hair, fingers getting caught on a tangle or two. He made a note to see if Jester had a comb stashed away in the depths of the haversack.

“Yeah, there was a lot of blood. I’ll go see if one of them will help, then.”

She hovered for a moment longer, giving him a quick hug as she clutched his right shoulder before she ran off again. Caleb watched her go, heart full and heavy in a vaguely unpleasant way. He wanted to call out, ask her to stay and tell him what was wrong, but it was likely the same thing that was wrong with all of them at the moment.

Caleb shook his head and turned to the haversack, the garish pink making his eyes burn with more tears as a perfect picture of Jester slid into his thoughts while he rifled through it, searching for the cooking pan. Eventually, he pulled it free, and he filled it some of the freshly fallen snow, setting it up over the fire. Sometime later, when the snow had melted and he had pulled the pan from the fire, setting it beside Mollymauk’s body, Beauregard trudged over.

“Keg’s helping Nott with the blood in the road,” she said simply.

“Need help cleaning him up? I’m decent at stitching up wounds, too.”

“Do I want to ask how you know that?” he teased, or tried to. He couldn’t have even made it half-hearted if he’d possessed the capacity. Her lips quirked; a sign that she saw and understood his attempt at trying to be comforting as they were both coming to terms with the reality of it.

“Got into a lot of fights as a kid,” she grumbled, settling on the other side of Mollymauk while Caleb set the bowl of water near his head. “Dear old Dad was not amused, but when I was younger and he thought it was just a phase or some shit, he had me learn how to do it to myself so he’d stop needing to call a healer every time I got in a scrap.” Caleb offered her one of the rags after he’d dipped them in the water. “Sounds like home was… not very homely.”

She shrugged. “It wasn’t. So… do you want me to get the chest, then?”

“Sure, _ja_.”

“Then pass me the needle and thread. I’ll need that for… sewing.”

He handed it to her without a word, and the pair of them took their time wiping the blood away from what parts of the skin they were able to reach without removing any clothing. At some point, Caleb poured out the dirty water and filled it up again to wash Mollymauk’s hair, and he carefully dried it with a warming spell to his hands, combing through the locks as he went.

Caleb wished he didn’t relish how it felt to have Mollymauk’s silky hair in his hands as the man lay dead on his own tacky tapestry.

Someone cleared their throat, startling him out of his thoughts, and he let go of Mollymauk’s hair as though it had burned him. His heart raced, thudding in his chest, until he caught sight of Beauregard tilting her head at him, concern writ plainly across her unusually expressive face.

“You were… lost there for a moment. Sorry to startle you.”

Caleb picked up the bowl with the bloody water and dirty rags and showed it to Beauregard.

“It– It’s fine. Are you finished with this?”

Beauregard nodded, and Caleb turned to pour out the water, wringing the rags until he was satisfied they were dry enough to be tossed into the fire. He didn’t want to save them and have Jester find them later, if they still managed to get the others back.

Caleb especially didn’t want her to find them if they saved her without Mollymauk.

He ran a hand through his grimy hair and sighed deeply, his other hand reaching to gingerly touch at one of Mollymauk’s horns.

“Beauregard?”

“Hmm?” She looked up at him, eyes still slightly red and puffy. “What is it?”

“Do you…” he paused, considering his words carefully. “Do you think we could bring him back, somehow?” Beauregard frowned. “Yeah, maybe. Gods, I want to try. I’m not letting the bastard one up me in the eternal afterlife just cause he saved me and then died. Fuck that.”

“I might know some people,” Keg piped up as she and Nott came around the cliffside to join them by the fire. Keg settled near Beauregard and Mollymauk’s body while Nott preferred to sit by Caleb and the fire. She seemed to have a hard time looking at Mollymauk’s body. Caleb reached out a hand and gingerly gripped her shoulder in what he hoped was a comforting gesture. He kept his eyes trained on Nott as Beauregard made a skeptical noise in the back of her throat. It wasn’t quite dismissive, but it was close, Caleb thought.

“By some people, you’re talking about shady ass clerics who can raise the dead, I hope?”

Keg huffed. “Yeah, I wouldn’t suggest it otherwise. This–” she sharply gestured to Mollymauk’s body with both arms, “is absolutely my fault and I–”

“It is not your fault,” Caleb interjected, cutting her off. “It was perhaps a combination of things, and perhaps one of them was, yes, your assumptions of the true depths of their skill, but I do not see this as entirely anyone’s fault.” He idly ran his fingers over the rough and ribbed texture of Mollymauk’s horn, finding the sensation to be rather pleasant and grounding so he just kept doing it to stay focused.

“However–” he added, trying and failing to power through the lump that had formed in his throat again, “I think… I would like to try to… to bring him back, if we can.”

Beauregard made another noise in her throat. Tacit agreement, Caleb thought.

“Yasha would kill us if we didn’t at least try.”

“She would,” Nott agreed, and they all glanced in her direction. It surprised her enough that she flipped her hood back up and replaced her mask, adjusting her bandages with unusually shaky hands. Caleb noted that she had yet to drink from her flask at all since Molly had gone down.

“Who’s this Yasha?” Keg asked, and Caleb watched a soft, goofy smile dance across Beauregard’s features.

“She’s _amazing_ ,” Beauregard gushed. “She’s tall, with rippling muscles and long dark hair that’s got this white fringe at the end and she carries this greatsword with her that’s nearly as tall as she is and gods she’s so beautiful when she gets angry–”

Keg snorted. “Okay, okay. You’ve got a thing for her. We get it.”

“I, what? I do _not_.”

“Oh, honey. You do. Honestly though, just from that description alone, I think I’ve got a thing for her too. I’ll bet she’s got thunder thighs for days that I just wanna put my head between and go to town.”

“Can we not talk about this with Molly’s dead body right here?” Nott groused, though she didn’t seem angry, merely perturbed.

Caleb chuckled. “He would have liked it, I think. For his friends to talk sex over his dead body like some raunchy sort of eulogy.” Beauregard glanced down at Mollymauk, with all of them following her gaze and staring for a moment in silence. Then Beauregard looked back up and fixed a skewed stare in Caleb’s direction.

“Hey. You just called us all your friends just now, didn’t you?”

Had he?

Oh gods.

“ _N–Nein_ ,” he stuttered, fumbling with his tongue, “I said _Molly’s_ friends.”

Beauregard merely smirked and huffed a soft chuckle. “Nah, dude. You might’ve said that, but you meant us too, I know it. Also, you just called him Molly. Dude’s only Molly to his friends, remember?”

 _Verdammt_.

“I– regardless. I believe if we wish to bring him back soon, we should head for Shady Creek Run with all haste. His body will not keep forever, and I do not know the spell that can be used to extend the limits of how long it will take for him to decay beyond a simple ritual.”

“How are we going to transport him?” Nott asked. “Wrap him up in the tapestry and tie it to one of the horses?” Caleb shrugged.

“That seems the best option we have, honestly, though as I am certain is obvious, someone will have to ride with him. That means we will have to draw straws, I suppose, or… ah…”

“Boulder, parchment, shears?” Beauregard suggested. Caleb sighed.

“It will have to be between you and I, I suppose. Nott’s too light, and a horse could not support both Mollymauk and Keg at once.” He turned to her, feeling his cheeks heat in shame. “My apologies, Keg.” Keg shrugged. “No need. I’m a dwarf. We’re very dense.”

Caleb turned towards Beauregard and held out his hands, sighing deeply again.

“Alright, let’s get this over with.”

Beauregard won, leaving Caleb to ride with Molly’s body. Keg and Beauregard rolled him up, Nott helped Caleb tie the tapestry around Molly securely and they all worked together to hoist the tapestry wrapped Molly onto one of the horses and tie him securely to it.

A part of him – _a sad, sick and twisted part_ , he thought– rather enjoyed his time with Molly’s body. He wished it had been on their terms, in better circumstances, but being so close to the tiefling, even while dead, was the most exquisite torture he had ever endured. Gods, but it made his heart ache something awful as the memory of that time Molly had pressed him against the wall of a sewer to scold him for taking too much coin during looting did _other_ things to places that were not all that advantageous to having things done to them whilst riding a horse.

He was thankful for the coming of night, which brought them to a stopping point well away from the side of the road. Caleb once again gathered kindling for the fire while Keg and Beauregard helped set up the tent (just one, because none of them seemed to want to sleep alone right now) and Nott shouted nonsensical orders at them, trying to be useful.

“Here, Nott,” he called one he’d started the fire. “Come help me prepare the rations, _ja_?”

Nott scampered over and huddled close to him, not even bothering to actually help. Caleb didn’t pry or push, knowing she wasn’t really here for that.

“I–I don’t like this,” she said after a while, having removed her mask again, but kept her hood up. “I don’t like Molly being dead. He’s… he shouldn’t be dead. Out of all of us, he deserved it the least.”

“Well, he might have disagreed with you on that,” Caleb remarked as he continued to separate out the rations. Rations that Molly had bought for them, he remembered with another soft pang to his heart. Really, it needed to stop that. That couldn’t be healthy. He shrugged and continued on. “But I… I agree. With you, that is.”

“Did you like him, Caleb?”

Caleb paused. It took him far longer than it probably should have to answer.

“I think I was starting to. We did not talk as much as we should have. I… want to hear him speak again. Even if it isn’t to me.”

“Oh, Caleb,” Nott sighed. She didn’t elaborate any further however, leaving Caleb to wonder at what she had meant, asking that question. He was saved from his thoughts by Beauregard and Keg coming by to eat, and the four of them discussed how they were going to take their watches.

“I can take one alone,” Caleb offered. “With Frumpkin still as an owl, he can help me see better.”

“I’ll take one alone too,” Beauregard offered. She didn’t add anything further, just stared intensely into her ration bowl.

Keg looked over at Nott. “Looks like you and I are trading secrets again. You cool with that?”

“Sure,” Nott muttered. “Just maybe we could avoid the lies, this time?” Keg’s brow tightened, then her eyes softened after she appeared to consider something.

“Yeah, sure. Long as you give me more booze from that flask of yours.”

“Done,” Nott agreed, and Keg smirked.

Silence settled again for awhile as they ate. None of them seemed to keen on conversation. Eventually, though, Caleb decided that they should probably figure out what the watch order would be.

Caleb cleared his throat.

“I think I shall take first watch,” he began. “Which would like to take second and third?”

“Third,” Beauregard cut in loudly, before either Keg or Nott could chime in. Neither of them seemed to mind second watch though, so Caleb just let the decision stand. Eventually, the others retired to their tent, and Caleb was left alone with owl Frumpkin and Molly’s body which they’d taken off the horse and laid on his bedroll.

Once everyone was settled in, Caleb took the time to ward the camp with his silver thread. He waited for a long while until he was certain everyone was asleep, to pull out the symbols from his coat pockets.

He gingerly thumbed at the silver cross with the two opposite crescent moons.

In the other hand, he clutched the harp and arrow pin so hard it dug into his skin, nearly making him bleed.

“You know,” Caleb began as he spoke to the silver cross, in Sylvan, “I know enough about you to know that your followers are charged to create, inspire, and find beauty in all that they do. I… have not found it in my heart for a very long time to hope that I could ever do so until Mollymauk Tealeaf came into my life.” He laughed weakly, bitter and sad.

“Like a whirlwind of sound and color. Almost overwhelming. Except when he wasn’t. In those quiet moments… he always seemed to know when to back off, and what to say. But when I let slip my desires in my moments of weakness, he did not shut them down. My dreams of a magnificent mansion for us all… he’d like to see that, he said.”

 _It beats sleeping in the rain, certainly_.

Caleb’s heart lurched again, and his breath shuddered.

“He encouraged me. He encouraged me and showed me, in his own way, that my magic _could_ be beautiful. However, even with that, I still struggled. I fear… without his presence, his light in my life… I will lose the war of my struggles, and whatever favor I might have with you.”

Caleb sighed. “Even if you won’t even deem me worthy enough for your aid, I would ask of it, or your guidance, not for me, but for him. This world could do without me, I think, but it is lesser without him.” He set the symbol back into his jacket again and shifted his focus to the small, stringless blue harp with the two opposite arrows.

“And you. Mollymauk called you… the Moonweaver. I… am uncertain if I should pray to you, after I have already prayed to another, but I am desperate. And… the one I am praying for is your…” Caleb paused, struggling to find a word.

Sylvan was a fluid language, and sometimes certain words could have multiple meanings.

“Your… your child. He is lost, and needs finding. My… my friends and I wish to help him be found, but I fear we cannot do so on our own. I would think, since I know from Fjord that he was a very devout follower of yours, that if there was anyone I could turn to for guidance, it would be you. My… previous prayers to your fellow god aside. I am trying to cover all my bases, you see, and I… gods. I think I was developing _affection_ for him. I didn’t think I could _do_ that again, after… after...”

Caleb’s eyes filled with tears, and he pressed the pin to his lips as he curled over and sobbed silently into his knees.

“A part of me feels I did not deserve his attention, but another wishes desperately that we had more time,” he confessed. “I want to bring him back, so that I can talk to him some more. So that he can flirt with me all he likes, even if his flirting is a tad inelegant, perhaps.”

Caleb chuckled wetly.

“Please, if there is anything you can do for him, for us, so that we might help him… please. I ask you to consider all of the love and light he had brought into our lives, and all the more he would bring to us upon his return. Please.”

After the last of those words left his lips, Caleb knew he was done. He’d made his pleas. He didn’t expect to have either of them answered.

So, it was with great surprise that, upon the changing of the watch as he settled down next to Beauregard and brought out the dodecahedron to see if that would help him sleep at all, when he found himself wandering in the vast expanse of shadows and stars. This time, however, was different than his last venture into this place. Though it still filled him with a strange sense of peace, there was a kernel of anxiousness that lingered somewhere deep inside his soul.

Caleb glanced up, and spotted the two moons high up in the space above. They were still mostly full, but definitely beginning to wane.

“You speak with such passion, Caleb Widogast,” a soft, ethereal voice spoke from behind him.

He turned around, startled, only to nearly fall to his knees at the sight of the woman before him.

She towered above him by perhaps a feet or so, all clear pale blue skin and long, white curls that spilled from beneath a sheer navy veil. Fur pauldrons adorned her shoulders, and from that, a long deep blue robe stretched all the way down her form onto a nonexistent floor from which the shadows of their surrounding appeared to stem forth. The robe was pinned to the fur by two bright blue arrows with circular silver clasps, and from her neck dangled what looked to be an elegant silver blue harp without strings.

Her eyelashes fluttered, and then he noticed that her ears were long and finely pointed.

“Moonweaver,” he breathed. And she smiled.

“That is I, yes,” she replied, and the chimes of her voice seemed to soothe that lingering ache in Caleb’s soul. “And I heard your prayer to me. The Archeart heard as well, but your prayer to me was the stronger of the two. More honest.”

“I did not mean for it to be,” he confessed, heat filling his cheeks.

She laughed, and the sound was that of a trill of pealing bells.

“No, perhaps not. But your honesty was what made your prayer so powerful. That, and the intensity of your feelings.”

Caleb frowned. The Moonweaver tilted her head, considering him.

“Though, perhaps you are not yet aware of that… hmm. No matter. That isn’t why I came.”

“Did you come to aid us?” Caleb asked, unsure if he should let the spark of hope in his heart become a proper flame. “I am afraid I cannot help you directly, but perhaps a thing or two may come across your path in the near future. If you wish to raise my dear Mollymauk Tealeaf from the dead, you have only just under ten days to do so. Unless you meet someone who possesses the skill of Gentle Repose.”

Caleb distantly recalled the contents of that particular spell.

“That… extends the duration for a Raise Dead ritual to twenty days, correct?”

“Yes, but even if you do not encounter such a person, perhaps other things, or people may come across your path that may help you.” She pointed up at the moons above them. “Do not lose hope, Caleb Widogast. For as long as the moons above you shine, you may yet see your dear Molly alive and well once more.”

She smiled at him, and suddenly Caleb was pitched forward into the darkness.

He awoke abruptly, sitting up and nearly knocking heads with Beau. He winced. “My apologies, Beauregard. I… had a rather intense dream.” She huffed and gave him a bleary, but intense look. “I’d say. You were muttering in your sleep, too. Wasn’t a language I recognized. Not Zemnian or that, uh, Celestial either.”

“Sylvan then, probably,” he supplied.

“Sylvan? Isn’t that the language of the faeries?”

He shrugged. “It is, and it isn’t. I… was using it to offer up some prayers while I was on watch earlier. Might be why it was stuck in my head before I went down to sleep.”

“Prayers? Didn’t take you to be the praying type.”

Caleb fished for the Moonweaver’s pin from within his coat pocket.

“Molly prayed to her in the past,” he said by way of an explanation. “I had hoped that by offering a prayer, she might help. For as much worth as a prayer of mine might be, anyway.”

 _They are worth more than you think, Caleb Widogast_ , a distant voice chimed in his head.

Beau didn’t appear to have heard the voice but was considering him anyway. “Huh. Well then. I hope she answers. Hmm. Maybe I should do some praying tonight, too. It’s been awhile, though, but who knows. Ioun’s a good one to pray to for information.”

Caleb watched her go as Keg and Nott settled in for more sleep. When their breaths were deep and even, he crawled over to the entrance to the tent and pulled back the flap. Across from him, Beau looked to be deep in thought, her lips muttering words he could not catch at this distance, as she clutched something in her hands.

Praying. That’s what she was doing.

Caleb looked up at the stars, and finally the moons above. In about ten days time, he knew, both moons would be new and only stars would shine in the sky for a little while.

Ten days. Ten days, unless they could find someone who knew Gentle Repose.

 _All will not be lost if you fail, Caleb Widogast_ , the Moonweaver whispered again. _The moons will continue to shine again, and again. Patience may be required, but that does not mean the light of Mollymauk Tealeaf will never again grace the earth._

As hard as it was to admit, Caleb knew that she was right.

He wanted to bring Molly back within ten days, desperately. He could at least admit that to himself now if nothing else.

However, they could fail. That possibility was very real indeed. Yet, failure was not the end for Mollymauk. It might take them a little while longer, and indeed, be more expensive to bring him back the other way, but they could still do so. As the Moonweaver said, the moons would shine, again, and again, and again.

Caleb let the tarp down and crawled back into his bedroll, curling around his sleeping goblin friend. His heart was filled with an excited anxiousness, but his soul was at peace.

One way or another, he would see Mollymauk Tealeaf alive and well again.


End file.
